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Why Chores are Important for Children of Single Parents

It’s not just to lighten your own load

Wendy Miller
5 min readOct 4, 2021
Photo by: Kate_sept2004 via Getty Images Signature

If you have children, you know the deep, abiding bond that develops between parents and kids. Because you love them, you want them to be happy. A parenting conundrum that often arises in light of this is whether to assign jobs around the house to your kids.

It can be especially conflicting if you’re a single parent. You feel guilty asking your child to do chores, as if you’re pawning your own work off on them. At the same time, you need the help and think that it would benefit your kids to do some chores.

You might also debate with yourself about how often to assign chores: are weekly chores for kids better or daily chores for kids? What are appropriate chores for kids by age? Is there even such a thing as chores for toddlers?

Here’s the good news. There are chores for kids of almost any age, including your one-year-old. And whether you assign them daily or weekly really doesn’t matter, as long as you give your kids consistent chores to do.

Chore appropriateness is a little more complex. While you can start with a list of age-appropriate chores, you’ll also need to consider your kid’s unique circumstances. They may be old enough to do their own laundry, but if they’re not tall enough…

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Wendy Miller
Wendy Miller

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